Second park hearing Tuesday

   MONROE —Time again to talk about the proposal to use some of Thompson Park for a new high school.

By: Leon Tovey
   MONROE — The second of two public hearings on the proposed Thompson Park land diversion will be held Tuesday at 4 p.m. at the Freeholders Meeting Room in the County Administration Building in New Brunswick.
   The hearing will give opponents and proponents another chance to publicly voice their opinions on the exchange of a 35-acre parcel of county-owned Thompson Park, on which the Board of Education wants to build a new high school, for 152 acres of undeveloped land owned by the township.
   The first hearing was held Nov. 21 at the Monroe Township High School, attended by more than 600 people and lasted for nearly five hours. Of the 70 people who spoke, 45 were in favor of the proposal — among them, a dozen township officials and employees and both legislators who represent the 14th District in the state General Assembly — and 25 spoke in opposition, including the six non-Monroe residents who spoke.
   Ralph Albanir, director of Middlesex County Parks and Recreation, said that despite the length of the first hearing, the format of the second hearing would be the same. A sign-up sheet will be made available shortly before the hearing and everyone who wants to speak will be given a chance to do so. There will once again be a strict five-minute time limit for all speakers.
   Township voters in December 2003 approved an $82.9 million referendum for a new, three-story, 365,000-square-foot high school. The referendum did not specifically name a site for the school, but the plan to apply for a diversion to get the parcel of the Green Acres-protected park was announced as part of the school plan when it was unveiled in April 2003. The site is currently home to six soccer fields. The township has offered to build replacement soccer fields near the intersection of Perrineville and Union Valley roads.
   The 2003 plan was a scaled-down version of a proposed, $113 million plan rejected by voters in 2002.
   The land diversion plan received the approval of the freeholders in early 2004 and county officials applied for the diversion later that year.
   The plan is opposed by local group Park Savers, the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club and the Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic. The groups have expressed concerns that the exchange would undermine the Green Acres program and have argued that the land being offered by the township is not of the same quality as the park parcel.
   Opponents of the swap raised all of these concerns at the first hearing; additionally, they argued that public hearings are premature because the county’s application is incomplete and the appraisals of the replacement parcels have not been certified by Green Acres officials.
   Two firms hired by the county to appraise the land being considered in the exchange valued the Thompson Park parcel at between $3.4 million and $3.458 million. The assessment was based on the potential commercial value of the parcel, which is located in one of the township’s R-30 residential zones.
   When assessing the properties being offered by the township — two parcels totaling 77 acres near the intersection of Route 522 and Schoolhouse Road and a 75 acres parcel on Hoffman Station Road — the two firms based their appraisals both on the commercial value of the parcels. The parcels are zoned R-20 residential and R-30 residential, and on their value for municipal uses. Lots in an R-20 zone must be at least 20,000 square feet. Lots in a R-30 zone must be 30,000 square feet.
   For municipal purposes, the two firms valued the 77 acres at between $2 million and $2.137 million and the 75 acres at between $1.72 million and $1.79 million. Under commercial use, the values were much higher; the 75 acres were valued between $7.56 million and $9.45 million and the 75 acres were valued between $2.64 million and $3.3 million.
   A Green Acres official involved in reviewing the county’s application said in early November that officials at the agency did indeed have concerns about the appraisals and had not yet certified them.
   However, Judeth Yeany, chief of the Bureau of Legal Services and Stewardship for the Green Acres Program, said Nov. 17 that while questions do remain about the application and the appraisals, state Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley Campbell had decided the time was right to gather public input on the proposal.
   No Green Acres officials are expected to attend Tuesday’s hearing, but officials at the agency will review testimony from both hearings before making a decision on the application. If approved by Green Acres, the exchange would still need the approval of Mr. Campbell and the State House Commission.